Reply #1: Wash Post – AP Story: Sancho of FL – Stands up to Vendors & Jeb, FIGHTS B

[autorank]

I apologize for at least 24 hours for for all the bad things I’ve said about the WaPost (unless this is in the online edition only, in which case they all stand). This is a great article and so true. Sancho actually tested a Diebold machine, AccuVote Tabulator, and showed it could be hacked under real-world conditions. For that, his alternate vendor, ESS, decided it could not sell him any machines themselves, as they were too busy. It was a SET UP, collusion. Sancho is not giving up. He’s suing back. He missed one of the idiot deadlines for HAVA and Jefville (aka FL) so the state his giving him grief. He won’t back down. Here’s to an honest man!


Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho:
Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho: "I'm being singled out for punishment."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/25/AR2006032500805.html
(By Phil Coale – Associated Press)

Now, however, Sancho may be paying an unexpected price for his whistle-blowing: None of the state-approved companies here will sell him the voting machines the county needs.

"I've essentially embarrassed the current companies for the way they do business, and now I believe I'm being singled out for punishment by the vendors," he said.

<snip>

"I'm very troubled by this, to be honest -- I can't believe the way he's being treated," said David Wagner, a computer scientist at the University of California at Berkeley who sits on a California board that reviews voting machine security. "What kind of message is this sending to elections supervisors?"

The dispute highlights what many elections experts say is a failure in federal oversight. In Maryland, North Carolina, Texas and elsewhere, elections officials have called into question the security and accuracy of new voting machines. The experts said that a more rigorous federal oversight process, in which machine testers have no financial connections to the voting machine companies, is needed to ensure election security in the United States.